Archive for March, 2013

If you happened to watch Dumbo as a kid, you might remember the scene where dumbo falls into a tub filled with champagne and accidentialy becomes intoxicated by alcohol. Dumbo’s hallicunations however are quite wild, and point in the direction of something else having found its way into the drink. Did Disney’s animators draw inspiration from some other, more exotic substance, back in 1941 when they created this segment of the Dumbo movie? I guess we will never know, but in any case “Pink Elephants on Parade” remains one of the most colourful and fantastic moments in the history of animated cartoons.

I discoverd Stelios Faitakis two years ago, at the Venezia Art Biennale, where he had painted a big mural on the wall of the Danish pavilion. His art captures the mood not only of the crisis in his native Greece, but also the global crisis of capitalism. Faitakis’ pictures look like something painted by a medieval monk beamed into our modern age, trying to document the society around him. The result is a striking visual language, which elevates the battles of our time to something much deeper than just angry young men throwing rocks at riot police.

I’m amazed by how simple and yet how cool this music video is. (Directed and animated by Ellis & Sac Magique). Norwegian electronic duo Ost & Kjex (cheese & crackers) have been around for quite a few years. I love their playful, unpretentious style and their quirky falsetto vocals.

Cooler, cheaper, better – the microcar is just a more sensible mode of transport than the gas guzzling giants that roam our highways today. Most cars in the developed world have only one passenger – the driver. The average European weighs 70 kgs. A typical car weighs 1-2 tonnes. In other words, the average car weighs 10-20 times more than what it’s transporting. Now that’s just insane. And the reason for it? Well, the car is more than just a mode of transport, it is a status symbol. The car is a napoleon’s horse for men without self irony, who take themselves too seriously and need a big car to compliment their ego.

Messerschmitt KR-175

Brutsch Mopetta – not sure if this is even a car. But it’s definitely transport in style!

I decided it’s time for me to showcase some of my own work, namely my digital collages. The first one was created in 2005 after a visit to a friend in Spain. Having collected all sorts of things since childhood, the flamboyant gay man with the baroque wig was responsible for turning my collection into a creative laboratory. I found him on a leaflet in Barcelona, announcing a major gay disco event. When I came back home, he just fit right in with the glossy collectable pictures I had gotten from my sister as a child. In the background I put a starry sky and space rockets from my father’s 1950s trading cards collection. The resulting piece can be seen underneath. Since then I have been steadily adding new works to my digital collage universe, with the herbal Jesus as the latest addition, made in 2011. They were all part of an exhibition in Mumbai, India in 2011, together with Ismael Sanz Peña’s animations. Himali Singh Soin arranged the exhibition and actually made it happen. To see more of my artwork, look here.